As communication networks grow in complexity, there is an increased need to provide a network management system to monitor, manage and administer network elements. In the past, some network management systems generated alarms and error messages which were then collected and reported to a system administrator's console. The administrator or user would then take corrective action which often required that a repair program be activated manually.
When the communication network is large and has a variety of diverse capabilities, there may exist a large number of status monitoring and repair programs which are utilized by the network management system. Moreover, because network capabilities are constantly being changed or added, corresponding changes are often required to be made to the associated status and repair programs. Undesirably, making these changes or additions to the status and repair programs requires that the network management system be recompiled, linked, and retested which involves disabling parts or all of the network.